Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn. I want to start this interview off with a quick warning.

There is going to be some very frank and sometimes graphic talk about death and cancer.

It's a conversation with Phil Elvrum. He's a recording artist and songwriter. Elvrum's

career dates back over 20 years, first as the microphones later as Mount Erie. He's

produced ambitious, beautiful records that mix genres like folk, noise, death metal,

shoegays, and more. It sounds a little bit like I'm listening off of the different bins

in a record store, but it's really compelling stuff. His albums have gotten a lot of

praise, not just because of the studio experimentation, but because of the beautiful ephemeral lyrics

he uses to tackle big existential questions.

When we talked in 2017, he just released a very, very different record. On Acro looked

at me. He abandons pretty much all of that. His first wife, Genevieve Elvrum, had died

of pancreatic cancer earlier that year. Along with Phil, she left behind a daughter.

Phil wrote and recorded the album in the room where she died, using instruments she owned.

As an album, it's raw, plain spoken, and therapeutic. He paints a portrait of grief by framing

his music around really specific moments, trips to the hospital, getting rid of old clothes,

getting stuff in the mail for her long after she's passed. These days, Phil is still recording

as prolific as ever. A few months ago, Phil released another album. His first and over

15 years recorded as the microphones. He called it, Microphones in 2020. Let's listen

to a bit of it.

Phil, I want to talk about a dumb thing because I think we're going to mostly talk about

not dumb things. I'll see what I can do about that. I just feel like we're going to have

...